Tipping culture in Australia
Replies: 53 - Last Post: Mar 8, 2013 5:54 AM Last Post By: jayanraj
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30
And while I can't speak for Australians, I'd be quite insulted if I tried to help someone, and they thought I was only doing it for the money.I think most Australians (certainly the ones who are not destitute) would agree with you ... but it's a long time since I was a wait-person, so I need to be cautious. But a generation ago, taxi drivers would often tip the passenger - by rounding the fare down to a convenient point.
In general, for a long while Australia did have (and in some respects still does have) a culture of interaction that was not all money based - people constantly helped each other with various services in all areas of life, including commercial activities, but were not consumed by making an extra quid (or a buck) from it.
33
Even toilet cleaners get $17.05 an hour !! Would YOU clean a toilet for that
I have friends who do it as a fundraiser! Not shop or school toilets, they are a luxury but the loos on trucks at music festivals. They personally do not get any financial remuneration, the club they are donating their wages to do.
36
Someone has to do it. Clean up human excreta that is.There are a lot of jobs on Seek, saying if you want work, there is work for a council cleaning council abolution blocks. People from indegenous & Torres Straits Islands encouraged to apply.
Exeloo. It mentions Adelaide!
Bl**dy oath, and I am not pulling the dog's leg here!
The following: though is a personal encounter of you know what.
LOG: *++*END OF LOG.
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Muddy, its a needed industry.If there were no cleaners, who would make up your nice hotel bed each morning, who would clean the council loos at the beach, or in the CBD (Exeloo)... who would clean your cinema seat of pop corn, or your train seat of rubbish...?
There are a lot of ads for cleaners, but my current round of assisgnments is enough.
I do in my job in cleaning schools find coins tough, up to $1 at times, so in a way, its a tipping culture in that area of work too.
But more so 50 cents, 20 cents, or plenty of 5 cents.
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O, gidday Ian.Er, um, you have not been around so much, so I am afraid I can't slot you in for a "work meet" for a few more years yet, slots open for 2015/2016 at the moment.
If I have not carked from a heart attack.
The old ticker has gotten worst, sad to say. Poor old guy, ...
Sorry to the OP, will shut up now.
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In Australia tipping is the Not the norm. If I go to a restaurant I don't leave a tip. If a Taxi fare is say $12.60 I would say "Keep the change mate".In Australia most people get good wages for a hard days work and they do not expect a tip. Tipping is an American Etiquette thing because employers are not paying fare wages to their employees. The basic wage in America is a joke to the rest of the free world. Check out basic wages in the UK and Australia. I was thinking of taking a Bus tour around the west coast of America but after reading about the American tipping culture it scared me off.
43
Where I saw the American tipping culture in its purest form was on a trip to New York about twelve years ago.I was waiting in the foyer of my Hotel off Broadway waiting for a tour bus and watching the 'doorman' opening car doors, greeting guests with a salute, loading their luggage onto a trolley and reversing the procedure for departing guests.
He was dealing with a vehicle every 30 seconds and every contact earned him a paper tip (I could see the notes changing hands but couldn't see the denominations). He'd place the tip straight into his greatcoat pocket and every so often when he had the chance, he'd take a massive wad of notes from an inside pocket and fold his most recent tips into the bundle. I had no idea exactly how much he was earning this way but at the time it seemed a lot.
What I did find out after a couple of days was this guy wasn't even on the Hotels payroll, it was an honorary position that the Hotel allowed him to fill, and he basically lived off his tips. I further discovered he had 'purchased' this position from its previous incumbent for a five figure sum, and he could keep the position for as long as he wanted before on-selling it to someone else.
It sounds like a crazy system, but he was the happiest doorman I'd ever come across.
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Yes ... there are a lot of positions in the tip-heavy world (up-scale restaurants, five-star hotel, cruise ships, etc), where there are no wages, income is totally from tips - and large, and the jobs change hands for large sums (ie, there is a capital investment required). But this is quite a small and peculiar market, in the scale of things.What I object to is the run-of-the-mill restaurant in Podunk Indiana - where the management pays below the basic wage, the wait-staff have to work their rings off, and rely on tips to supplement their meagre compensation. And the visiting middle-class punters are expected to fork over 20-25% to make this nutty process work. This is real system failure.
No evidence at all that the service is better.
